Annual Report

July 31, 2007 – June 30, 2008

Land Protected July 31, 2007 – June 30, 2008

BLACK SLOUGH

The Black Slough winds through the picturesque South Fork Valley where it joins the South Fork of the Nooksack River at Van Zandt. Whatcom Land Trust purchased 20 acres from Dennis and Karen Espeland for the perpetual protection of fish and wildlife habitat. Protection, enhancement, and restoration of the Black Slough to restore base flow and maintain cooler temperatures has been identified as critical for salmon recovery in the South Fork of the Nooksack. A small grove of old Sitka spruce, red cedar, Douglas-fir, and western hemlock on the back end of the property stands testament to remind us of the bounty of the past and show us what is to be regained through good stewardship, patience, and time.

COREY SLOUGH

The latest addition to the over 995 acres of salmon, eagle, and elk habitat along the North Fork of the Nooksack that the Land Trust has preserved now includes 33 acres purchased from the Corey Family. A grant from the Washington State Salmon Recovery Funding Board was matched with private funds raised by Whatcom Land Trust at the 2008 Great Outdoors Auction Save-an-Acre. Land Trust supporters raised a record $14,250 to support this acquisition. The Corey Slough Property is crossed with a web of historic side channels of the North Fork and Bruce Creek, providing optimum spawning and rearing habitat for salmonids. Fall and spring Chinook, coho, sockeye, and chum salmon, winter steelhead, and bull trout all utilize the North Fork and small channels on the property for spawning or rearing. Bald eagles feed on the bounty of salmon on the North Fork of the Nooksack River riparian habitat and beaver work on falling black cottonwoods.

EBE, GROEN & HOLZ AGRICULTURAL EASEMENTS

In 2008 Whatcom Land Trust again partnered with Whatcom County to permanently conserve agricultural property. A combination of the Purchase of Development Rights program, managed by the County’s Planning and Development Services, the resources of the Land Trust, and willing landowners placed an additional 174 acres under agricultural conservation easements. These easements: (1) protect the ability to use the property for agricultural purposes; (2) preserve the soil as a valuable resource and prevent activities that would impair the soil’s ability to produce food and fiber; (3) enable the property to remain in agricultural use by preserving its agricultural values, character, use and utility. WLT presently holds conservation easements on slightly more than 1,000 acres of farm lands, with about half coming from Trust actions prior to the AgPDR initiative in 2004. The Groen and Ebe families placed easements on 94 and 40 acres respectively, and the Holz family placed their second parcel into the program. The Land Trust takes great pride in being an active partner in the permanent preservation of farmland in the county.

MAPLE CREEK PARK

As Maple Creek makes its way from Silver Lake to the North Fork Nooksack, it flows over a small but significant waterfall that gives the community of Maple Falls its name. The Land Trust facilitated the purchase of 75 acres on Maple Creek, including the namesake waterfall, for Whatcom County Parks. The County now owns the property and the Land Trust protects the ecological and recreational values of the site in perpetuity with a conservation easement.

Maple Creek Park is a tract of mature forest bordering 1,800 feet of Maple Creek just north of the Mt. Baker Highway and east of the Silver Lake Road. The park borders the Bay to Baker Trail system along its southern boundary and will serve as a critical link and trailhead. The character of the timber on the property is mixed species generally 50-100 years old. Old, gnarly, moss-covered big-leaf maples, Western hemlocks, Western Red cedar, and Douglas-fir shade Maple Creek, creating a quiet preserve along the gentle stream.

Maple Creek Park will provide a needed public outdoor recreational opportunity for residents of Whatcom County in an area with few parks or recreation sites. Hiking trails through the forest will give the public a chance to experience wildlife and solitude. Scenic views of Mt. Baker and the Nooksack Valley will be possible from trails and picnic sites on the property.

GLACIER SPRINGS & THE LOGS

Canyon Creek is one of the largest tributaries of the North Fork, draining the alpine heights of Bear Paw and Church Mountains. The very lowest portion of the watershed is home to the Glacier Springs Subdivision and a former popular recreational resort known as The Logs, both situated on one of the largest alluvial fans in the county. Very large floods in 1989 and again in 1990 scoured the lower Canyon Creek basin, destroying homes, roads, and infrastructure. Public agencies responded to this disaster by constructing rip-rap flood barriers and a massive rock dike in an attempt to keep Canyon Creek from causing more damage. Unfortunately access to 4 miles of spawning habitat in Canyon Creek was blocked by the construction of the dike. Having attempted to control the creek, and realizing the harm that flood control structures did to Chinook salmon spawning habitat, Whatcom County came to the conclusion to buy out the landowners most at risk of harm rather than continuing to spend public dollars on flood control works. Whatcom County River and Flood Division partnered with the Land Trust to receive matching grants from both FEMA and the State Salmon Recovery Funding Board to purchase properties along Canyon Creek, remove all structures, and protect the area for salmon habitat. The River and Flood Division transferred to Whatcom Land Trust the now vacant 68-acre Logs property along with four lots in Glacier Springs, completing the first joint salmon and flood management project in the county.

Canyon Creek has long been recognized as one of the premier Chinook spawning reaches in the Nooksack basin. The Land Trust will manage this sensitive area for salmon and wildlife habitat. Plans are being developed to remove a portion of the dike constraining Canyon Creek, remove the Chinook salmon passage barrier, and re-vegetate gravel bars along the flood plain. The Land Trust and Whatcom County will work together to protect and restore Canyon Creek to its former preeminence as a Chinook spawning stream.

SQUALICUM CREEK

Squalicum Creek conservation easement, an anonymous donation, secures creek frontage, protects bird habitat, water quality, and open space in the heart of Bellingham. The benefits of this preservation project will become more and more valuable to the community over the course of time.

HOGAN

In the mid-1980s, Bill Hogan retired from his accounting career and moved to Bellingham. Two years later he purchased 20 recently logged acres on Squalicum Mountain. Supported by Whatcom County Farm Forestry, Bill planted nearly 5,000 trees there over the next 15 years Douglas-fir, western red cedar, noble fir, grand fir, Sitka spruce, Norway spruce and hemlock. Over the course of time Bill’s efforts transformed the denuded landscape into a forested hillside.

Bill entrusted his legacy to Whatcom Land Trust with the donation of his land and his trees. His only instructions were that the Land Trust needs to do what is best for the Land Trust with this property. He also had one request that he be allowed to continue to plant and prune in the forest that he created.

LILY POINT

Neither wildlife, nor ecological processes recognize the artificial boundary line sketched on the map that defines the border between Canada and the United States. Lily Point hosts a dynamic assembly of ecological processes. Nutrient-filled currents sweep by reefs and tidelands; riparian forests provide shade, bird perches, and insects to the coastal environment; and eroding cliffs supply sand and gravel for spawning fish and beach replenishment. These processes are essential to the health of Puget Sound the Orca that patrol the Straits of Georgia, salmon that skirt Lily Point on their way to the Fraser and Nooksack Rivers, bald eagles that scour the beach, great blue herons that stalk the tidelands, and waterfowl and shore birds that flock to Boundary Bay. Lily Point’s relatively large undeveloped and natural shoreline, and its combination of mature upland forests, riparian vegetation, feeder cliffs, and ecologically abundant tidelands provided the Land Trust with a project of regional and international significance in 2008. Lily Point is identified as a priority protection site in the Puget Sound Action Team Recovery Plan. The Nature Conservancy includes Lily Point as Priority Conservation Area because of the site’s exceptional and regionally important ecological values. Boundary Bay, whose ecological health is directly linked to Lily Point, is recognized as an Important Bird Area by Birdlife International, as a Western Hemispheric Shorebird Reserve Network Site and as a U.N. Wetland of International Importance especially for Waterfowl.

The history of Lily Point attests to its fecundity. Archeologists date human occupancy back at least 9,000 years. For centuries, the Coastal Salish Native Peoples maintained their primary reef net fishery and a summer village for as many as 500 people at Lily Point; they called it Chelhtenem hang salmon for drying. Here the Lummi ancestors each year performed their most important first salmon ceremony to ensure the return of the fish central to their culture.

The funds to purchase Lily Point came from an impressive array of sources. A $1,750,000 grant from the Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program administered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife was critical to the acquisition. The Estuary and Salmon Restoration Program was part of Governor Gregoire’s 2006 push for investment in Puget Sound ecosystem recovery. The Washington Department of Ecology, citing the project’s correlation to the Puget Sound Initiative, a collaborative effort by local, tribal, state and federal governments, business, agricultural and environmental interests, and the public to restore and protect the Sound, added $500,000 from fines generated by the 1999 Whatcom Creek gasoline explosion and fire and another $50,000 through a Coastal Protection Fund grant. With enthusiastic support from the County Executive, the Whatcom County Council voted unanimously to appropriate $600,000 from the Conservation Futures Fund to support the purchase. Whatcom Land Trust raised nearly $400,000 in private donations from Canada and the U.S. and contributed approximately $250,000 in its own funds to complete the transaction.

Whatcom Land Trust now holds a conservation easement specifically designed to protect Lily Point and ownership was transferred to Whatcom County for use as a park. Lily Point is only a half-hour drive from Vancouver, and is rightfully seen as a resource and responsibility for Canadians and Americans alike.

VAN DYKEN

Arnold Van Dyken donated a small property bordering the Nooksack River near Lynden. Whatcom Land Trust intends to manage the 1.25-acre parcel for the protection of wildlife habitat along the river and as open space land providing passive recreational access to water. The parcel is situated between Northwood Road and the Nooksack River. Whatcom Land Trustâ€™s management of the parcel will preserve the visual quality along the road as well as preserve open space and enhance public recreation opportunities.